Monday, April 5, 2010

Damn tourists

 Back before Mardi Gras, I was drinking at the Chart Room with a rather nice girl named Veronica. I'd met her the week previously and we hit it off as folks in bars often do. I don't remember how the conversation got around to this, but she said something along the lines of the following:

 "New Orleans will fool you. It will be so cool to you and then knock you on your ass just when you get comfortable." Ever since then, I've been waiting for the shoe to drop. Either someone will steal my car or I'll get mugged or someone will break in or something will happen, and them that know me best know I can worry like nobody's business. I've just been waiting on it.

 So, I get off work tonight, and after having a sandwich and cleaning up a bit, I decide to go to Cosimo's to drink a few cold beers and get some reading done. I sit around for almost two hours, shoot the shit with Lauren the bartender and head home. I get maybe 20 feet from my apartment door and notice, for no particular reason, a red Nissan Titan pick-up truck with two fratboy-looking dudes in it and a GPS system. About the time they get to the corner of Rampart and Dumaine, I hear heavy footfalls coming up behind me.

 Before I can really react, WHAM, I see stars. Some asshole just hit me in the side of the face. He runs on and the truck door opens to let him inside. I holler out, "Why'd you hit me, asshole?" To which he wittily replies, "You're the asshole." "No," I come back, "What was the point of that?" I swear, he stopped to think a bit before he jumped in and drove off. The truck was too far away and I was still seeing stars so I couldn't get the license plate and all I could see of the attacker was a baseball cap, a blue sports jersey and khaki shorts. Had I been able to make a positive ID, I would have called the cops.

 Long and short of it is I have a pretty nasty cut under my right eye and it's starting to swell a bit. Plus, I have a roaring headache. It wasn't much of a punch, frankly. He drew blood, which has already stopped bleeding, and I was staggered a bit, but I didn't go down. He obviously wasn't in the mood to hang around and didn't try to steal anything, so it was a completely pointless act of unnecessary violence that will, at most, result in a headache tomorrow morning, some jokes from my co-workers and worry from Momma.

 Welcome to New Orleans, I suppose.